The verdict came after the exhibitors’ vote: Louis Bélet SA has joined the list of winners of the EPHJ Exhibitors’ Grand Prix with an innovation that is both highly technical and immediately useful for high-precision workshops. The company was rewarded for its polycrystalline diamond — PCD — drills with internal lubrication, designed to improve production rates, tool life and drilling quality in difficult-to-machine materials.
The innovation is based on a hybrid architecture combining a tungsten carbide body, which enables efficient geometry and a high oil flow rate, with a polycrystalline diamond tip, renowned for its exceptional wear resistance. The technological breakthrough lies in the laser drilling of this PCD tip, allowing lubrication to be delivered directly as close as possible to the cutting zone.
For Louis Bélet’s R&D managers, Pierre Falbriard and Thibaut Nicoulin, the objective was very concrete: to overcome the limitations encountered with conventional PCD tools, whose production rates often remain insufficient. By bringing the fluid to the heart of the problem, directly into the critical drilling zone, the tool enables better chip evacuation, fewer interruptions and greater process stability.
The results achieved are significant. In lead-free brass, a 2.28 mm drill was validated at more than 800 mm/min, without peck drilling and without tangled chips. On small diameters, Louis Bélet reports speed gains of up to seven times compared with some conventional solutions. Beyond pure performance, the economic impact is also important: a more durable and more stable tool, capable of guaranteeing high drilling quality, directly improves the cost per hole.
This innovation also responds to the evolution of materials. Lead-free brass, driven by new regulatory and environmental requirements, is more complex to machine. Other materials, such as technical ceramics, composites, precious metals or certain materials used in the medical sector, also require new technological solutions.
By rewarding Louis Bélet, the EPHJ 2026 Exhibitors’ Grand Prix highlights an innovation that is emblematic of high precision: discreet in appearance, but decisive in terms of industrial performance. It illustrates a strong conviction: the future of productivity will not be shaped by machines alone, but also by the intelligence of tools, materials and processes.
With this distinction, Louis Bélet confirms its role as a reference player in high-precision cutting tools and opens up new perspectives for watchmaking, microtechnology, medtech and all industries faced with the machining of increasingly demanding materials.
